Personal View Of Soviet Jews Another View

"What the Russian Jews really want," was the title of an article by Gwynne Dyer published in The Morning Call on April 6.

Since not so long ago I was a Russian Jew myself I got really interested to find out what according to Mr. Dyer I really wanted.

What have I learned from this peculiar mixture of partial truth, ignorance and arrogance?

First, I have learned that 400,000 Jews want to leave the Soviet Union, "but of course, most of them don't really want to go to Israel; they want to go to the United States," the columnist declares.

I guess, Gwynne Dyer has received this information firsthand from a public poll conducted by him among the potential emigrants in the Soviet Union.

There is an implied negativism in the article toward such desires of Russian Jews. Is there anything wrong if they do want to come to this great country? It does not seem strange for Gwynne Dyer, a Canadian syndicated journalist, to work in London and to publish his articles in America. Why not give the Russian Jews at least as much freedom in deciding their own fate? The issue is not where they want to go, this is for them to decide, but to be able to go.

Then I have learned that "the Soviet government has allowed a measure of Jewish emigration on the grounds that these are profoundly religious people longing to join their coreligionists in Israel . . . . "

Where is this coming from? KGB statistics?

If Mr. Syndicated Columnist would bother to open any Soviet newspaper he would quickly learn that the Soviet Union is an atheistic society. Most of Russian Jews are not religious and the Soviet government knows it very well. Russian Jews have always been the most oppressed minority which got a terrific boost to their national identity and their fight for freedom after the Arab- Israeli war of 1967.

Moscow does not make a "phony exception" for Jews based on their religion but because Jews are a very convenient currency which could be issued in small coins or large bills in exchange for some needed commodities. Moscow sometimes runs into snags with this currency game, like the Jackson amendment which Mr. Dyer labels as "idiotic."

I am one of many thousands of eternally grateful others who got out of Russia thanks to this amendment. There is something definitely idiotic in the columnist's article but it is not the late senator's amendment.

This however is not the end of Gwynne Dyer's discoveries. Here comes a real jewel: "The Soviet state is not anti-Semitic. Soviet Jews do not suffer any special oppression, and Judaism is under no more severe constrains than any other religions . . . . "

I wish Mr. Dyer could live just half a year as a Jew in the "non-anti- Semit ic" Soviet Union and would try to get a job, try to openly visit a synagogue if hewould find one, try to buy some matzos, try to speak aloud in Yiddish or Hebrew in a public place or sympathize with Israel, try to send his kids to a good college, etc.

Do you know that official Soviet propaganda equates Judaism, Zionism and fascism?

I wonder if Mr. Dyer has ever heard of the "Jewish doctor's plot to kill Stalin"? Does he know that on May 9 - the Victory Day in Russia - Soviet propaganda never mentions Jewish war heroes as if they never existed? If this is not anti-Semitism I do not know what is.

At this point columnist Dyer turns to generalizations and recommendations.

How many people would leave the Soviet state if they were allowed to go free? You don't know? Ask Mr. Dyer.

"My guess is that if the doors were opened wide about one-seventh of Soviet citizens of all nationalities would think about emigrating," he writes.

Based on what?

But then, says G. Dyer, only Jews can go in large numbers because the Soviets have a "face-saving excuse for why they want to leave." Has Mr. Dyer never heard of Germans or Armenians leaving the "workers paradise?"

And what should the free world do to help those Jews? Oh, nothing much: just keep playing as the Soviets expect us to play. He puts it this way:

"At the diplomatic level, every effort should be made to maintain that facade, since otherwise the emigration would be stopped."

George Schultz and "the people in official positions," are you listening? Even though it is just a facade, you better maintain it. Mr. Dyer knows his stuff. According to his conclusions "most Soviet Jews really leave not for religious reasons, but because they are looking for a better Moscow."

I have to disappoint Mr. Dyer. What the Soviet Jews really want is for people who have no knowledge or understanding of their problems whatsoever to unplug their word processors and devote their leisure time to some other activity.

Maybe fishing.

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(Zalman Liss emigrated from Minsk, in the Soviet Union, to the United States in 1977. He is now a United States citizen. An electrical engineer, he has lived in Allentown since 1978.)